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Ensuring Fijian children’s access to healthy diets

A case study on school food environments










FAO. 2021. Ensuring Fijian children’s access to healthy diets – A case study on school food environments. Apia.



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    Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet
    Including gastronomy in the School Feeding Programme: The alternative to achieve the right to healthy, tasty and waste-free food
    Guidance note for the pilot project in Barranquilla, Colombia
    2021
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    Each year, the department of Barranquilla, Colombia, invests around 40 billion Colombian pesos (USD 12.2 million) in the School Feeding Programme (PAE) to feed 113 818 children and adolescents. This research estimated that including gastronomic techniques in just one menu of the PAE Barranquilla could prevent 99.7 tonnes of food waste, which represents around USD 159 000 per year (1.5 percent of the total budget). This food waste is partly due to students leaving the food that they do not find tasty on their plate. These data are derived from a small-scale pilot intervention, with a before-and-after assessment design, carried out in an educational institution in the city of Barranquilla, Colombia, where the gastronomic quality of a school menu was improved through a reinforcement training provided by a professional chef to the PAE food handlers. In order to identify if there were differences before and after the intervention, a survey was applied to a sample of children aged 8 to 14 years, which resulted in an increase in acceptance (from 52 percent to 72 percent) and a decrease in food waste (87.6 grammes on average per child per day).
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    Policy brief
    Making healthy diets a reality in Fiji
    The role of policy in supporting food systems that work for health
    2021
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    The Fijian Government’s agenda and strategic priorities – as informed by their international and national commitments – end up the shaping Fijian food systems, and the diets of Fijians. This agenda influences policy decisions and can either support or deter Fijian food systems from providing affordable and healthy diets for its population in a sustainable manner. Each food system function has an impact on food availability and accessibility and provides entry points for policy measures to support healthy diets. Since a wide range of sectors with varying agendas and strategic priorities are engaged in the food system, these brief outlines diverse policy measures that can align or conflict with each other and either support or impede Fijians from achieving affordable and healthy diets. However, for policy to be effective and achieve sustainable measurable results, the capacities of individuals, organisations and the policy enabling environment need to be strong. This brief also analyzes the major challenges and bottlenecks for effective policy design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation.
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    Brochure, flyer, fact-sheet
    Including gastronomy in the School Feeding Programme – A necessary change to guarantee children's right to healthy, tasty and waste-free food
    Guidance note for the pilot project in San Marcos, Guatemala
    2021
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    Each year, the Guatemalan State invests about 1 869.2 million Quetzals (USD 245 million) in the national School Feeding Programme (PAE, by its acronym in Spanish), which feeds 2.4 million children. This research estimates that, by including gastronomy in the PAE, it is possible to prevent in a school year (180 days), the waste of 561.6 tonnes of food, equivalent to USD 864 000, or 0.35 percent of the invested budget. This food waste is partly due to children refusing to eat food that they do not find tasty. These data are derived from a small-scale, pre-and post-design pilot intervention in an educational institution in the Department of San Marcos, Guatemala, where the gastronomic quality of a school menu improved due to a back-up training provided by a professional chef for the PAE cooks. In order to identify whether there were differences before and after the intervention, a survey was applied to a sample of children aged 8 to 14, which resulted in an increase in acceptance (from 84 percent to 90 percent) and a decrease in food waste (by 1.3 grammes on average per child per day). Taking as a reference the cost of implementing a gastronomic laboratory in the Chilean PAE (0.017 percent of the total budget), and counterbalancing it with the resources corresponding to food waste in the PAE Guatemala (0.35 percent of the total budget), it appears clearly that investing in gastronomy is a useful mechanism to optimise the use of public resources invested in the PAE. For this reason, based on the findings of this study, it is highly advisable to incorporate gastronomic personnel into the PAE team, who can advise throughout the entire implementation chain.

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